Secret Voices in the Night
by Anne Maria
Summary: On the eve of his birth as Vader, someone comes to pay Anakin one last visit.


**Timeframe: **right after RotS.**  
****Disclaimer:** No profit is being made from this, since none of these characters belong to me; they're George Lucas property (so go blame _him_).  
**AN1: **This fic was inspired by the song "My Last Breath", by Evanescence. Lyrics inside the story.  
**AN2:** Read, enjoy, and review. I adore feedback :).

It was late night inside the Star Destroyer _Executor_. Or at least, that was what the on-board chrono said. To Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, it all seemed the same; inside his black armour, the hours of the day were all alike.

He could still remember a time when nights had been special, moments of secret meetings and reunion, a time when he'd expected them to come as a little boy expects his lifeday gifts, but it was all over now. At present, nights were no different from the rest of the day.

The warm refuge he once used to escape to didn't exist anymore; it had crumbled in the most horrendous way possible. Things should never have turned out like that. He'd foreseen everything: he'd use Palpatine to save her, and then they would rule together, they'd find a way to overthrow the Sith Lord and get the Republic marching on the right path, like he'd once told her, back in the sunny plains of Naboo.

But she hadn't wanted to listen to his plans. She had betrayed him, lied to him, spoken words of love and at the same time brought Obi-Wan with her so that he could capture him and take him to the Jedi to face punishment for what they called his "subversive actions". She had deserved what had happened to her. Traitors were worthy of no mercy.

Anger flooded Vader's system to the point he felt he would explode. An Alderaani crystal piece that had been standing on his desk shattered into hundreds of tiny shards in response to the Dark Lord's uncontrolled wrath.

_She deserved it. She practically handed me over to that __traitor Kenobi turned out to be._

But no effort he made was sufficient to convince himself of that lie. Padmé had been an innocent soul, the only person who had ever loved him apart from his mother, and he had destroyed her. He and no one else was to blame for her death. He had failed her, and their unborn child, and he would have to live with that knowledge forever.

A cloud took hold of the Dark Lord's mind, a hurricane of guilt and shame, and he fell to his knees, his legs incapable of supporting him anymore. Voices screamed in his mind, the voices of the people he'd murdered, of the children whose lives he'd ended so early, of the fellow Jedi he had betrayed, of the fathers and mothers, husbands and wives he'd slain without compassion. All those he'd left alone in the galaxy, at the mercy of the Emperor's will, were now claiming their vengeance.

_It was for a good cause_, he told himself_. The New Order will bring peace and balance to the galaxy. They had to die; they were insurgents who stood in the way of the rising stability. I did my duty, and it was the right thing to do._

But the voices refused to be silenced. And as their piercing cries grew louder and louder in his mind, he distinguished a voice that stood out among the rest, one it would have been impossible for him to miss, despite the whirlpool of misery that consumed him. It was the sweetest, softest voice he'd heard in all of his life: the voice of an angel.

An angel whose death he was responsible for, because he'd turned his back on her when she'd needed him most. He'd refused to listen to her pleas, to her explanations, and now it was already too late for her. And for him. He was lost to the light forever. Darkness was his home now, the very substance that kept him alive; there was no space for anything else in his world. All he'd ever held dear was gone, never to return.

He tried to avoid going down that path, knowing where it'd lead. But the voice just wouldn't leave him alone.

"Ani, I'm here. Please, listen to me."

Darth Vader placed one hand on the floor of his cabin and leaned hard on it, unable to bear what was going on. The ghostly silhouette of his beloved Angel was standing in front of him, so beautiful and beatific in her paleness that it tore his heart apart just to see her.

_Hold on to me love  
__You know I can't stay long  
__All I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid  
__Can you hear me?  
__Can you feel me in your arms?_

Padmé's figure moved closer to him, and he recoiled, not capable of allowing her to touch the tainted material he was made of now. But she paid no attention to his refusal, and instead knelt beside him, taking his weight in her delicate arms.

He bent his head down to avoid seeing the look in her face. He wasn't prepared to deal with the contempt and horror he knew would be there. He was getting accustomed to being a monster to the rest of the galaxy, but Padmé's disappointment in him was something he knew he'd never be ready to face.

"Ani, listen to me," Padmé pleaded, her voice, contrary to what he had expected, warm and kind, yet mingled with unmistakable sorrow.

"Listen to me, Ani!" This time she sounded more resolute, and he recognised the politics tone he'd so often heard. Then, Padmé placed her hand on the chin of his mask and raised his face so he was looking straight at her. "I have something very important to tell you, Ani, that's why I'm here. Please listen to me," he stared at her, unmoving, and she started speaking, tenderly, like she would have spoken to a scared child: "Not everything is lost, Ani," she said, and he felt he was breaking inside. "There is still hope for you; there is still goodness inside of you, even if you don't want to accept it. And there will come a day, Ani, when you will be rescued from this blood-filled life you've chosen, when you will be rescued from yourself. Someone will come one day, I promise. Please, don't give up. Hold on to me. Hold on to everything we once were."

Padmé's words resonated in his mind, but they could not pierce the thick mantle of agony that enveloped it.

As she knelt beside him, he tried to make out her smooth features, to imprint her image in his heart so he would never forget it. But the scanners he now used as eyes did not allow such pleasures as colours and textures. _It's more efficient this way_, Palpatine had said, and he had agreed with his Master. Who needed colours when they could have the most competent computers, superior to any deficient human eye? But now, as he gazed blindly at his dear Padmé, he wished he still had his old, imperfect eyes. At least with those he had been able to see his Angel clearly. And he remembered, with immense desolation, how that had become one of his favourite early-morning activities after their marriage: he had spent countless hours watching her sleep, amazed at her loveliness and at the peace that surrounded her, flowing to him. In those moments he had been able to meditate as never before at the Temple.

But those golden days had lasted as short as a rainstorm on Tattoine.

_Holding my last breath  
__Safe inside myself  
__Are all my thoughts of you  
__Sweet raptured light__, it ends here tonight._

"I can't stay long, Ani," she resumed. "I must move on, but I didn't want to leave without seeing you one last time."

Clumsily, afraid to hurt her, he extended his black-gloved hand to touch her face. She smiled gently at him as he caressed her with his unfeeling metallic fingers.

Her compassionate gesture made him feel even more unworthy. Why was she here? Why did she deign to talk to him, much less touch him, after all he'd done? He was dirty, tainted by the death and darkness he'd immersed himself into. Had anyone like him come close to her in the days of their marriage, he would have done something rash without second thought to defend her. She was pure, unpolluted, an Angel of light; he was the lowest being in the galaxy. And yet, she didn't seem to care about that.

All of a sudden, it was more than he could stand.

A blood-curdling wail echoed in every corner of the _Executor_, a sound that made the hairs of everyone on board the ship stand on end. It was an almost inhuman howl, like a wounded animal would have released when found face to face with its executioner. It was pervaded with pain, desperation, misery; a tortured soul's way of expressing repentance and remorse over the things he'd done, over the mistakes he'd made, over the lives he'd taken and the ones he'd destroyed. But it was the only way Vader could allow himself. Only to her could he admit what he truly felt. Only to her could he admit that he still _felt_ anything at all.

Padmé held him tighter, trying to soothe a grief she knew inexorable. "I'll be fine, Ani," she promised. "I still love you, and I always will. I'll never forget you." Time was running short. She stood up, stroking the cold black mask one last time.

_I'll miss the winter  
__A world of fragile things  
__Look for me in the white forest  
__Hiding in a hollow tree (come find me)  
__I know you hear me  
__I can taste it in your tears._

"Goodbye, Ani," she whispered, tears trickling down her ashen cheeks. "And remember, not everything is lost." She smiled again through her tears, the radiant smile full of love he knew so well. But this time, instead of bringing him comfort as it once had, it left him feeling more hollow, knowing that it could be the last time he'd see it. "There will always be hope, Ani. I love you. And I forgive you, for everything."

Anguish flowed through Vader unrestrained at her last words. How could she say that, after all the pain he'd caused her, after leaving her alone when he should have been her support more than any other time? How could she forgive him, when he'd been the cause of her death, and of the death of their child, when he was certain he would never forgive himself?

Padmé shook her head, dolefully. "There are things you don't know, Ani. I wish I could ease your suffering, but this is the life you've chosen. This was your decision, and now you must walk your path to its end. Think of me when you're lonely, Ani. I'll always be with you."

She began to fade away.

"Wait, Padmé," he called, choking on his words. She looked at him, radiating infinite calm.

"Yes, Ani?"

"Will we…," he fought to speak through the searing pain that coursed through his chest and made it almost impossible for him to breathe. "Will we ever meet again?"

"What does your heart tell you, Ani?"

His artificial breathing filled the chamber for a few moments. At last, he said: "I don't know, Angel. My heart is dead now. It's been dead since you left."

Padmé's countenance grew infinitely sad. "Then, Ani, I cannot tell you anything else. I wish things had been different, but they are the way they are, and it's too late for us to change them now."

Her hand still reaching out to him, Padmé's form grew fainter and fainter, until it was gone.

_Closing your eyes to disappear  
__You pray your dreams will leave you here  
__But still you wake and know the truth  
__No one's there.  
__Say goodnight  
__Don't be afraid  
__Calling me, calling me as you fade to black._

Vader's sight darkened as Padmé disappeared.

His Angel had come to say goodbye, and now she was gone. Forever. She would never return, and no one would ever be able to heal the maddening rage and emptiness that ruled his life since the second he'd found out she was dead and he was the culprit.

In her innocence, she had talked about a remaining hope, about someone who would come to rescue him someday, who would save him from himself.

Poor Padmé. There was no salvation for him. He was irredeemably lost, and he would burn in Sith hell for all eternity. But at least she was right about one thing: this had been his choice, and there was nothing he could do to change it now, even if he had been willing to. Once she was gone, there was nothing left to tie him to his past, to that weakling Anakin Skywalker.

And so it was that, surrendering, he finally gave in to the nothing that was unrelentingly calling for him, claiming its rightful dominion over his soul.

Long after the crew of the Star Destroyer had resumed its normal functioning, Darth Vader stood up with difficulty and slowly headed for his egg-shaped meditation pod.

He knew he had one last night to himself before it was time to start his new duties as Emperor Palpatine's trusted man, and he was sure that the following day, and all the ones to come, would be tough.

There was an Empire to build.


End file.
